The 37 year old Byrd is starting to remble the pitcher he was in the second half of 2006. Even prior to last nites debacle his peripherals were getting worse with each start. An update of Byrds numbers look like this:

93 hits in 68 IPS

Lefthanders are again smoking him despite this new pitch to the tune of a mind boggling .343 batting avg and the opposition is hitting him .321 overall. His WHIP is 1.43 with his saving grace bewing his great control but even with that he got destroyed last nite. His margin for error is so narrow b/c of his mid 80's junk. The biggest suprise to me is his ERA of 4.50 despite these other numbers has to be attributed to pure luck IMO.

Shapiro has long been a favorite of Byrds going back to his days as the Tribes Farm directoe when Byrd was drafted in 1991. So i wouldn't expect Byrd to be dealt at any time despite these numbers that are indicators of an aging pitcher going down the tubes ala Burba a few yrs ago.

Its a shame that Guthrie didn't get Byrds September starts last year when the team was long out of contention and September is always been a month of auditions but that loyalty to aging mediocre vets like Byrd by the likes of Wedge/Shapiro cost us a good pitcher in Guthrie.

To hear some people on the board, the only reason Guthrie is pitching well is because he has a real pitching coach in Mazzone and is away from the damaging influence of Carl Willis.

Others will contend that pitching coaches aside, Guthrie just didn't perform in his mulitple tries with the major league club and that while he pitched well in Buffalo, he never translated that when he was on the mound in the bigs.

At the end of last season, starts were afforded to Carmona and Slocum. If Guthrie was really showing something promising there was a good chance that he could have gotten at least 1 of those opportunities.

As for costing us a good pitcher, Guthrie was thought of so highly around baseball that NOBODY offered a luke-warm body to acquire him once he was DFA in January and Baltimore was able to get him with a waiver claim. Heck, the pitching starved Nationals would have loved to claim Jeremy but even they didn't want to pony anything up to ensure they got him.

BTW, didn't the Tribe rally against Guthrie and the O's earlier this season.

I am happy that Guthrie is performing well now. Hopefully he can remotely help the Tribe by sticking it to other teams around the American League but pitching Byrd in September did not cost the Tribe Guthrie.

Yes Byrd has been struggling over his last few starts but the pitching cupboard is not empty and if the struggles continue, I am sure someone else will step into the spot and lend a hand.

Byrd was doing fine until his last two starts. He was 6-1 with a 3.88 ERA. Those are good numbers for just about anybody except maybe CC, Santana, Schilling, and Beckett. In his last two starts he has given up 11 earned runs in 10 innings, which bumped his ERA up to 4.50.

The question is whether he got lucky in his first nine starts and now the real Paul Byrd is emerging, or whether he just hit a rough patch and will work his way out of it. It's too early in the season for him to be tired, so my guess is he just had a couple of bad games. It happens.

Last night we was victimized by Ibanez for two home runs, which accounted for four of the seven runs Byrd allowed. After Byrd left, Ibanez went on to hit a double and a triple. He was just unconscious last night. Byrd was off his game as evidenced by 11 hits allowed in four innings, but I think he'll get it fixed.

It's all point of view, I suppose. One could say it is unfair to define his year including the last two starts because it ballooned his numbers. Another way to look at it is that the guy was very lucky to be 6-1 with an era under 4 early on. The guy has given up 93 hits in 68 innings, meaning he really hasn't been fooling anyone all year.

My point at the beginning of the year is the guy is going to end up around 5.00 at years end, meaning you could use a young pitcher that failed and he's not going to be much worse.

I understand eating innings and all that, but as far as value goes, we'll look back on his two years here and agree that this was a poor signing.

I posted my view on Byrd in another thread, but overall I have concerns he is rapidly deteriorating. I won't repeat myself here, my comments are in the "top 5 concerns" thread if you are interested in why I think he may not rebound.

I have watched Byrd pitch since 1989, when he was a sophomore at LSU and pitched on a staff with Ben McDonald, Russ Springer, and Curtis Leskanic. He has been a great competitor and when he was with ATL and LAA, I really enjoyed seeing his success. BUT...

he will be gone at the break or by next season. I think it's time we put a plan into effect to get our rotation on point. The bullpen needs help, too, but if 5 starters can give you 6 each night, then those troubles will be solved (more and more Betancourt and less and less Mastny).

My proposal?

Baltimore will be shopping Tejada soon right? I know they won't be able to afford him. MARTE!! Let's give Baltimore Marte, Choo, and one other ML player and get BEDARD! We need another strikeout guy and Bedard would be a helluva pickup.

Prosecutor wrote:Byrd was doing fine until his last two starts. He was 6-1 with a 3.88 ERA. Those are good numbers for just about anybody except maybe CC, Santana, Schilling, and Beckett. In his last two starts he has given up 11 earned runs in 10 innings, which bumped his ERA up to 4.50.

The question is whether he got lucky in his first nine starts and now the real Paul Byrd is emerging, or whether he just hit a rough patch and will work his way out of it. It's too early in the season for him to be tired, so my guess is he just had a couple of bad games. It happens.

Last night we was victimized by Ibanez for two home runs, which accounted for four of the seven runs Byrd allowed. After Byrd left, Ibanez went on to hit a double and a triple. He was just unconscious last night. Byrd was off his game as evidenced by 11 hits allowed in four innings, but I think he'll get it fixed.

They hate guys who lead the AL in strikeouts?
Mark Sahpiro has nude photos of someone in their fron office?
Because we will say pretty please, with sugar on top?
Because Andy MArte hit 4 home runs the last week in AAA and the Orioles love guys that play well in AAA.
Bedard has no STD's, so he does not fin in well in Baltimore?

I think Byrd will be fine. He's had two bad starts. Byrd needs to start staying off the plate more. He's been throwing strikes all year and I think he needs to revamp the approach now. 0-2 and 1-2 he's been going right after guys. He may need to start wasting more pitches - to keep the hitters off balance. He's been around long enough to make the adjustments. I don't think it's an aging body - I think it is more related to his approach.